Help me win a lease of the new Lexus HS Hybrid Sedan

If anyone has ever read my blog, www।nextgenautos.com, you know that I own a comfortable, capable but thirsty Ford Expedition. Its a great vehicle, but not so great on my wallet. And now, as an employee of an nonprofit that promotes energy efficiency, I'm a bit conflicted through ownership of this behemoth. Do I want to get rid of it? Probably not. But would I like something smaller and more fuel-efficient for my daily commute? Absolutely!

I've entered a contest to win a year-lease of the new Lexus HS Hybrid and need your support to win.

Just visit http://www.drivehs.com/vote/125805 and cast your vote to save me from my gas guzzling SUV. Tell you friends, and tell them to tell their friends! The gallon(s) of gas you save...might just be mine!

http://www.drivehs.com/vote/125805

I’m keeping the Expedition, Dammit

Like many car enthusiasts, I crave variety. The full spectrum of automobiles is barely enough to slake my thirst for cars of every shape, size, color and type and if I were independently wealthy, I’d need a second home just to house all my heavy metal.

Unfortunately, I’m not independently wealthy and can only afford one vehicle – two if you count my wife’s. So I have to choose a relatively exciting vehicle that can also practically serve as my daily driver. With two kids under seven, a six-foot-three-260-pound frame and a penchant for vehicles that I “look right in,” my choices are somewhat limited. And oh yeah, I’m ALWAYS looking to get the most vehicle for the least amount of money. Enter my 2004 Ford Expedition, a hulking American-made body-on-frame SUV with fuel-sucking pushrod V8 and a slot on every responsible environmentalist’s hit list. Why? I like it. Period. And it fits my needs.

Fast forward to July 2009. I’ve been driving the Expy for a couple of years and as usual, I’m getting antsy. I don’t need a new vehicle, but I damn sure want one, so I started to scouring the classifieds, looking for another vehicle, different from what I have, that will essentially fill the same role as the unblemished one I’ve already got. What I soon found out was how difficult a process I had embarked upon.

I have more features, capability and functionality under my ass than really need and duplicating it is a challenge. Let’s see, rip-snortin’ American engine that can tow a small yacht? Check. Room enough to hold me, my two kids and a gang of their friends? Check. Reliable and inexpensive to maintain? Double check. Leather, heated and cooled seats, audio and video entertainment, power adjustable pedals, power 3^rd row seat and sunroof? Check, check, check, check, check AND check. And all for $21,000 and 450 bucks a month– including a pretty solid comprehensive service contract and only 32k miles on the clock (now standing at 62,000). Duplicating has become an exercise in futility – at least for $21,000, so guess what? I’m keeping the Expy.

What the F’s with the $3-a-gallon+ gas again?

Its June 11th, 2009 and Summer is in full swing. School is letting out, the trees are in full bloom, days are getting longer and skirts are getting shorter. And just as the mercury is rising, so are the nation's gas prices.

While its true that fuel prices always trend upward during the summer months, the past few years have put that process on hyperdrive - an upward trajectory that is both steeper and more rapid than ever. Just a year ago, petrol was $4-a-gallon for regular. Ouch. But as the economic meltdown accelerated and Toyota Priuses started commanding 15-to-20% premiums, demand for that same petrol went the way of subprime mortgages, as did those astronomical gas prices.

As an owner buried neck deep in a reliable, capable but thirsty Ford Expedition, the $1.97 regular price was more satisfying than a Swedish massage and gullably, I thought they might actually stay there. But I also thought the Nintendo Wii would die a swift and violent death.

As luck - and Murphy's frickin law would have it - those prices are on the rise again. The national average is hovering somewhere around two and a half bucks but is up 9% in the past month and climbing. For those of you screaming "hey idiot, its summer time - of course gas prices are going up," did you realize that demand is still down substantially over a year ago?

Apparently, the capitalist system still has a huge boot in the rear end of the economy, despite our best efforts. The petro puppeteers are manipulating suppliers and playing the futures/commodoties game on all of us. The result? Despite less use, our wallets are still being strangled by big oil.

Bearing witness to the car wreck

Its been three months since I put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) to write about the auto industry. I'd love to write more about vehicle development and exciting new models hitting the market but (un)fortunately, the news surrounding GM and Chrysler is far more interesting. In the classic vein of watching a car wreck (no pun intended) I cant take my eyes off the compelling, never-ending story of the former Big Three. I mean seriously. A season of Desperate Housewives doesnt offer as much drama as these automakers have over the past several months. And while I in no way want to see these bastions of American heavy metal bite the proverbial dust, I can't help but derive some sick humor over watching them teeter from side to side on the bankruptcy tightrope. Why? Its just high drama. Yesterday, I heard a talking head say that GM has a "good chance" of emerging from bankruptcy. A "good chance", I asked myself? A "good chance" is what you want when you buy a lottery ticket or face a terminal illness, not when the fate of a multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporate entity is hanging in the balance.